


To Lift Your Spirits

by worldworn



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Bad Puns, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Halloween, I'm Sorry, Implied Illya Kuryakin/Gaby Teller
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-26 06:43:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4994209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/worldworn/pseuds/worldworn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gaby lets her head fall back against the hard cement ground, feels her vision swim and her mind drift to hazy unfamiliar places, numbing the nauseating pain coming from her side until Illya purposely leans more of his weight into this palms. The bastard. </p><p>"Stay with me, Chop Shop Girl."</p><p>She feels one of her eyes tearing from the pain.</p><p>"Distract me, then," she says roughly. </p><p>---</p><p>In which Gaby reads ghost stories, Illya is confused, and terrible jokes are told with good reason.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Lift Your Spirits

They’re in New York City in October, wrapped up in crisp air and gray skies, lost among a dense forest of skyscrapers, and all Illya and Napoleon seem to do is argue about capitalism and American Halloween. The three teammates are on a simple information-gathering mission, so there is a lot of downtime spent in the hotel room, a lot of free space for Solo and the Russian to fill with ridiculous argumentative banter.

Gaby, meanwhile, has been spending her time reading a battered paperback she found beneath her bed. Its cover is black and glossy, the title a bright artificial scarlet, bloody and proclaiming _Tales of the Dead!_ When she opens it, curious, the yellowed pages spit a little dust at her and she smells the musky scent of well-aged literature.

It is a small book with large print, likely left behind and forgotten by a child. A book of stories that spin ghoulish tales of witches and spooks and werewolves framed by foggy full moons. The stories are cheesy and poorly written and Gaby is sucked in immediately, reads it for two days straight.

On the third day, she jumps a mile high when Illya passes silently into the common room of the hotel suite. Her heart pounds, quick and swollen, and her sunglasses slip from her head and onto her face. He almost looks offended at her shock, so she brandishes the well-worn book and explains its contents, the reason he caught her unawares.

He’s confused, and she is bored, so she even reads the first story aloud to her Russian teammate, something bland but eerie about an old house haunted by spirits.

When she finishes, her voice deep with dramatic flourish, Illya is staring at her with a frown.

"Is ghost story," he says. "For children."

"Yes, I'm aware of that." She rolls her eyes behind the lenses of her sunglasses. "That doesn't mean it doesn't frighten me."

He looks genuinely puzzled, brow furrowed and eyes glinting like a perplexed puppy. Gaby almost smiles. Almost.

"I do not understand. What is frightening about dead man?"

"My god, Peril," Napoleon finally chimes in from his seat in the corner of the hotel room, blue eyes peering over the edge of his newspaper. He sighs and folds it neatly into his lap. "Is there any room left in that head of yours for anything other than hissy fits and communism?”

Gaby suppresses a sigh at the look that immediately clouds Illya's face, barely concealed irritation held in every line. She picks up her book once more, tongues her thumb to flip to the page she left off on, and begins reading with her glasses still on. Waiting out the storm.

"Rich coming from you, Cowboy. What is in your head other than hair products and safe schematics?"

Napoleon smiles slowly, his trademark _I'm-trying-to-piss-you-off_ grin that he especially loves to break out around their prickly Russian teammate. A still cat with a slowly flicking tail, too curious and self-assured for its own good, observing and prodding at a bigger, angrier dog until it snaps its jaws. Gaby isn't quite sure if the two of them play this game to prove something or because they have the mentalities of young boys. Perhaps both. 

They trade cutting barbs—mostly harmless—for a few minutes while she hums to herself and immerses her mind in frightfully cheesy stories. The two necking teenagers had just been interrupted by a light tapping sound outside their car, and the boyfriend was foolishly about to check on the noise alone in the dark—

"Gaby?" Napoleon's voice.

"Hm?" she hums, lifting her sunglasses to glance between her teammates. They're both looking at her expectantly. 

"What are your thoughts on vampires?"

"On vampires?" She considers the question, eyes the waterstained ceiling. Grins and says, "They suck."

A beat of silence. 

Napoleon quirks an eyebrow, presses his lips together to fight against a more genuine smile of amusement.

"That," he pronounces, "was an awful joke. You should be ashamed."

Illya just looks lost again. He sometimes still has trouble understanding translated humor, she has observed, puns in particular, and his quizzical expression only deepens when Gaby and Napoleon begin to snicker. 

"I do not understand," he says again, sounding more exasperated than annoyed, and Gaby laughs outright.

***

Two weeks after New York, one mission later, in the shadow of an abandoned building in a small African village, Gaby is bleeding heavily from a deep, deep bullet graze near her ribcage. Napoleon has stalked off with lethal grace to find the poor sap responsible, exact adequate revenge, and to retrieve some proper medical aid. Illya is pressing makeshift bandages with his big dumb hands hard against her wound to staunch the scarlet flow. He is unnervingly calm despite the white hot anger in his eyes.

She hisses a bit as he puts more pressure on the graze. He frowns, unrepentant. 

Gaby lets her head fall back against the hard cement ground, feels her vision swim and her mind drift to hazy unfamiliar places, numbing the nauseating pain coming from her side until Illya purposely leans more of his weight into this palms. The bastard. 

"Stay with me, Chop Shop Girl."

She feels one of her eyes tearing from the pain.

"Distract me, then," she says roughly. 

Illya bites his lip, looks away in thought. Gaby allows her eyes to trail over his solid profile, catch at the dark blonde strands of hair that fall out of place and rest like spun gold over his forehead. His eyes are soft, now, when they catch her gaze, a stark contrast to the harsh spread of his fingers against her ribs. He tries to smile, but it falters and fades with worry.

"I do not know what to say," he admits.

Gaby blinks hard, grins up at him with gritted teeth.

"Tell me a joke," she says. "Or a riddle, or something. I don't know. Just make me think about anything else."

He lets out an amused breath of air, makes a show of thinking hard again. Gaby wonders if the man even knows any jokes, in any language.

"Ah," he finally replies, "I know. What do Russian ghosts like to eat?"

She blinks. Thinks of two weeks back, of a hotel room and a bad joke lost in translation. Wonders, with sudden clarity, when Illya had the time to ask Napoleon about how puns work, how the Russian phrased his questions about the americanized holiday that the he hated so much. Something warm grips her heart and ties a knot in her throat. She clears it with a rough cough, smiles big as she asks, "What?'

"Ghoulash."

He says it in an even monotone. There is a moment of utter silence, and then Gaby laughs as softly as she can so as not to disturb her side. Illya smiles thinly. Her heart feels swollen and too big for her chest as she ponders the motivation behind his newfound humor and lets out a groan of pain at the pun. 

"What do you eat on a haunted beach?" he continues. 

She knows this one. 

"What?" she asks anyway.

"Sand-witch."

Snickering from them both, now.

"That's terrible," she says.

"What is vampire's favorite fruit?"

"Tell me."

"A necktarine."

Gaby is laughing, too pleased to care about the pain. The world falls away a little; the stone at her back is still a solid discomfort, but the hard press against her aching side fades into a dull throb.

"Which monster is the best dancer?" she finally asks.

Illya looks away from the crimson spreading over his hands, catches her twinkling eyes with his ever-hesitant smile. 

"Who?" he asks.

"The boogie man."

Illya laughs, loud and sudden and sweet. It's a rich, deep sound that calms Gaby to the bones and pushes away the cold that has been crawling over her paling skin. 

When Napoleon returns with a satisfied swing to his step and the village doctor in tow, he finds his two teammates in quiet hysterics. 

"Well," he proclaims, "this is a disturbing sight. I didn't know your programming included laughter, Peril."

Illya uses the inside of his sleeve to wipe humorous tears from his eyes, keeps his smile on Gaby even as he removes his bloodstained hands from her. She grins back, lupine. The doctor hums and prods at the congealing, bloody gash in her side, and she is too delighted still to suck in a breath of pain like she wants.

"Is only for special occasions," the Russian admits.

***

When Gaby wakes up in an unfamiliar bed, she keeps her eyes closed tight and feels a large, warm hand resting, comfortable, on her wrist. She breathes deep and floats for a moment, the pain in her side numb and distant now.

"Hey, Cowboy." Illya's voice is a low, tired murmur beside her.

"Yes?" Napoleon is somewhere near the foot of her bed, rustling some kind of paper. His tone is distracted and wary.

"Who was most famous French skeleton?"

Gaby bites down on her strong urge to smile.

"I swear to all that is holy, Peril—"

"Napoleon Bone-apart."

Silence.

“I’ve created a _monster_ ," the American finally groans, a venomous and exasperated accusation. 

Gaby sucks in a gasp and laughs deep and true, eyes still closed. Illya's hand wraps tighter around her own.

***


End file.
